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Posts Tagged ‘geospatial’

We’re almost at the end of the year and we’d like to hear from you, the readers, about what you think the most important geospatial advancements have been for 2014.

Esri CityEngine allows users to visualize both qualitative and quantitative impact of design scenarios, perfect for the integrative planning needs of those looking to develop vibrant, sustainable communities.

In a conversation with George Demmy, CTO of TerraGo, GISCafe Voice learned about the release of OpenGeoPDF technology, now available with TerraGo Publisher for ArcGIS, TerraGo Composer and TerraGo Toolbar.

Cities worldwide are charged with the same challenge: that of creating or retrofitting sustainable, intelligent infrastructure. Cities need the best in design, geospatial, visualization and analytical tools to realize a viable and intelligent city design. 3D City design is architectural design times thousands, plus it must have the ability to be interwoven with other surrounding infrastructure and foster an urban conversation.

In the “Utilities and Government” breakout session on Media Day at the Bentley “Year in Infrastructure 2014” event held in London last week, a number of Bentley executives spoke on various aspects of utilities and government, with new developments for 3D cities.

Bentley Year in Infrastructure 2014 Conference, London

The event showcases work being done with Bentley Systems’ software, with presentations by all the Be Inspired Award finalists for the year, topped off by a gala Awards ceremony on Wednesday evening.

Cyndi Smith, senior director of Application Advantage at Bentley, introduced speakers. Aidan Mercer, senior industry marketing manager for Government spoke on “Advancements in Government and Life cycle Management of Infrastructure.” He also spoke about “Advanced BIM for cities,” which includes the various BIM levels used in 3D cities: Level 1: 3D visualization and design; Level 2: performance improvements; Level 3: extending into the operations at the complete asset level and this contributes to a smarter city. He mentioned a really excited finalist in the BE Awards this year, the City of Eindhoven, a city that uses MicroStation, Descartes, ProjectWise, and Navigator in its development of new city infrastructure.

Know What’s Underground

Rachel Rogers, Applications Advantage for Civil, Geospatial, Hydraulics and Hydrology, announced Bentley Subsurface Utility Design and Analysis in OpenRoads will be available in early 2015, and will be a game changer in terms of knowing what’s underground.

The product automatically creates a 3D model and brings together the information needed, provides 3D modeling of all underground utilities, that you can readily update into your GIS database. This gives you a true picture of what’s underground.

One of the highlights is that you have visualization clash detection which can drive construction costs down.

Utility Industry with Cyndi Smith

An industry trend seen recently: convergence. “With the convergence of information technology and operations technology, some projects I’m seeing are bringing in engineering technology,” said Smith.

The inaugural ASPRS UAS Conference was held October 20-22 in Reno, Nevada, bringing together a diverse group of technologists, pilots, surveyors, vendors and consultants to talk about this emerging technology. 500 attendees and 50 exhibitors were in attendance.

Master of Ceremonies, Lewis Graham of GeoCue, opened with his comments on the importance of miniaturization, connectivity and sensors in the UAS market.

“Miniaturization and connectivity and sensors. Sensors will communicate in intelligent ways, software in background to make that happen,” said Graham. In addition, “Sense and avoid” type of technology/ software makes decisions based on proximity of the aerial system.”

The confluence of miniaturization, guidance and control systems, motors, sensors, on the photogrammetry side, new technologies out of robotic vision, taking point clouds of photos and taking information from this all conspire to bring UAS to the forefront and make it a force to be reckoned with.

If you’re feeling particularly ghoulish, Esri’s “Where Are the Bodies?” story map is offered just in time for Halloween, documenting the final resting places of some of the most famous (and infamous) actors, artists, authors, and criminals. From Al Capone to Andy Warhol, and many more, learn more about each individual and interactively explore high-resolution imagery for the cemetery or burial site where they’re interred.

You can scroll through the alphabetical list to see each entry, or you can click one of the buttons on the right side to jump to a specific person.

Unmanned Aerial Systems is one of the disruptive technologies of this century. Whomever would have thought that small flying planes, that look very much like the hobbyist planes that people fly remotely, would someday take the role of carrier pigeons in delivering packages and also providing aerial surveillance, both on a government and citizen level.

Ken Gorton of Esri talked about the GeoPlanner at Esri UC 2014 in the Plenary, mostly in relationship to the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI)’ s work in Africa with the great apes’ habitat.

GeoPlanner supports every step in the design workflow for Geodesign and is an addition to the ArcGIS platform. Built on ArcGIS Online, it leverages web maps and can be used in infrastructure design, public safety, and planning of all kinds. GeoPlanner can be put on the portal so everyone involved can use it.(more…)